WoW is what you call a cash cow, which means it is in its product stage where they are milking as much money as they can from it. I mean, if they wanted to they could do amazing things with the game, but the profits from the game are being used elsewhere at ATVI. Developing an expansion to WoW + its various patches is far cheaper and more profitable than making a completely new Call of Duty game.

Most people would rather die than think, and most people do. -Bertrand RussellIdeas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns. Why should we let them have ideas? -Joseph Stalin

I do not think they are puting enough effort into MoP for how much money they rack in each year. Hell even each month. I mean think about it. 10 million times $15 each month.

I realize they also have to pay for developing Titan & the next WoW expac(s), plus pay all the employees. But even as an optimist I am feeling like we are really getting skimped on content (5.2 does not look particularly exciting to me, dinosaurs and rehashed terrain/mogu architecture. the map of the new area is pretty small as well).

But at the end of all of this, I would like to say I've played WoW since 04 and I still love it

Since when is that for you to decide? They are a business, they have a mission to make income and maximize profit... I still think that I get a very good deal for the monthly fee I pay, so I am satisfied. That's the way you should look at it... do you get your money's worth? If not then stop playing. But it's quite stupid to think they should be obliged to make less profit and put more in the game for the players.
Though you may not like it, that's how a free market works. They can make all th eprofit they want, and it's not like they are monopolizing the market, there are competitiors that charge the same amount of money (at least at first) so the price apparently is about right. Customers are happy and stay subscribed, so why on earth would a busness(person) with any common sense invest more money than required.
Remember, doing smart business is making the best revenue/profit with the least amount of investment...

---------- Post added 2013-01-29 at 12:53 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Cybran

I have to agree that Scenarios, Speed runs and Pet battles was wasted content development time.

Disagree, disagree and disagree really.... although I must say I'm not doing Challenge runs a lot and having a break from Pet Battles, I still do love them. So in my opinion that was definitely not wasted.

---------- Post added 2013-01-29 at 12:54 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Venant

WoW is what you call a cash cow, which means it is in its product stage where they are milking as much money as they can from it. I mean, if they wanted to they could do amazing things with the game, but the profits from the game are being used elsewhere at ATVI. Developing an expansion to WoW + its various patches is far cheaper and more profitable than making a completely new Call of Duty game.

Compared to when? We have never gotten so much content in so little time before, in 8 years. They now have more people working on the WOW team than they've had before, last we heard it was 160 developers, and for Mists of Pandaria they specifically created a second patch team that works on new patches at the same time as the main patch team. That's 2 patch teams working at the same time. Granted one patch team makes smaller 5.1 scale patches while the other makes 5.2 patches, but you imply perhaps there was some better era in the last 8 years content wise.
We have never had this much stuff to do. You are no optimist.

This times 1,000. I came in here and read the OP and just sat for a few seconds before finally muttering, "Really?"

The amount of discontent in human beings is absolutely incredible. Give them shit amounts of actual content but have it be demon-related and they will eat it up like chocolate and call it the best content ever. Give them twice to three times as much content and have it asian-themed and they will call it lacking.

MoP has been the best, and most content-packed expansion WoW has EVER seen. The flavor may not be for everyone, obviously, but you're a fool to say it hasn't brought the MOST (and most polished) content than ever before.

Compared to Cataclysm, I feel like they're adding a lot more content more frequently. Even if it is small stuff like pet battles or brawlers arena, its better than nothing.

In Cata, we waited around 4 months for 4.1 and all that gave us in terms of new content was a short quest chain and 2 reworked dungeons. You did all those in 1 day and were bored of the dungeons by the end of the week. The only other thing that patch added was Tank/Healer Call to Arms and Guild Challenges which were features rather than new content.

In MoP, we waited 2 months for 5.1, got a new faction with yes, more dailies, but the storyline plot it gave was something this game hasn't really seen before. On top of that Brawler's Guild is a nice time sink, and the new battle pet trainers were fun to battle, and the 3 new scenarios were fun to do the first time around. I'm kind of bored and waiting for 5.2 already but at least 5.1 gave me things to do for about 1 month.

Seeing as they already have 5.2 on the PTR for a while now it's safe to say we'll have it in the next month or two. They are definitely picking up the pace of adding new content, and adding in a lot of variety in the type of content.

This times 1,000. I came in here and read the OP and just sat for a few seconds before finally muttering, "Really?"

The amount of discontent in human beings is absolutely incredible. Give them shit amounts of actual content but have it be demon-related and they will eat it up like chocolate and call it the best content ever. Give them twice to three times as much content and have it asian-themed and they will call it lacking.

MoP has been the best, and most content-packed expansion WoW has EVER seen. The flavor may not be for everyone, obviously, but you're a fool to say it hasn't brought the MOST (and most polished) content than ever before.

---------- Post added 2013-01-29 at 05:56 AM ----------

Laugh-worthy.

So many comments i could quote. But the OP is just something else and so is the guy that said 'Real Gamers don't play MMO's' That has to be the most retarded comment i've ever seen and I mean EVER. Real gamers play GAMES! This can be from ANY genre, I play WoW, also on Steam been loving Dishonored and still play my Battlefield 3 from time to time. On my PS3 I got God of War Ascension pre-ordered and waiting and im also looking forward to The Last of Us on PS3 also (will also get Ni No Kuni at some point). Can't wait for Bioshock infinite on my PC and GTA 5 for my PS3 later down the line.

Its shocking right? I can play all types of games on different platforms! Yes I'm what they call a gamer! I even got my misses into Walking Dead on the iPhone we both got the iPhone 5 and love the game. Deserved game of the year absolutely.

As for the OP: This has probably been the best expansion since Wrath. I loved wrath for the story of the lich king and as a Pvper it was the first expansion that got me into raiding. There couldnt have been a better time to play my Paladin and my DK. Content wise - MOP destroys every expansion and the speed of which content is coming so far its incredible.

Note that I'm a pvper so don't care for raiding at all. I do daillies for mounts got my amber scorpion and blue shado-pan tiger and if 5.2 Epic bat mount is from a daily i'll be doing that too!!! I love optional content. MoP has hit the nail on the head when it comes to content. Oh and I just love my Monk, became my new main Human Monk for PvP most fun i've had on a new class and its not even OP in pvp right now nor has it ever been. Full Malv and looking forward to the quality of life changes in 5.2.

WoW is what you call a cash cow, which means it is in its product stage where they are milking as much money as they can from it. I mean, if they wanted to they could do amazing things with the game, but the profits from the game are being used elsewhere at ATVI. Developing an expansion to WoW + its various patches is far cheaper and more profitable than making a completely new Call of Duty game.

"Completely new" and "Call of Duty game" should probably not be used in the same sentence.

If you are particularly bold, you could use a Shiny Ditto. Do keep in mind though, this will infuriate your opponents due to Ditto's beauty. Please do not use Shiny Ditto. You have been warned.

I do not think they are puting enough effort into MoP for how much money they rack in each year. Hell even each month. I mean think about it. 10 million times $15 each month.

But at the end of all of this, I would like to say I've played WoW since 04 and I still love it

I don't think there is any amount of content that is going to make you happy. You've been there and done that. You just can't do the same things over and over, year after year and it feel fresh and exciting.

Not sure how you feel like we're being skimped on content. Cata felt fairly light on content, in both daily activities and raids. MoP so far is stuffed full of stuff to do. Granted maybe half isn't that fun to do.

The more interesting thing I find about WoW players is they complain endlessly about there being nothing to do, the content not being worth the $15 a month or just that Blizzard as ruined the game in general, but for some reason, refuse to quit. If it's not worth $15 a month. Unsub. It's almost like there is some sort of dishonor if you get tired of something and quit\take a break from it. I'd go on to say that the best thing that could happen to WoW, is if at least half the community took a 6 month to year break from the game. Maybe skip a whole Xpac. At about 3 months into Dragon Soul, I said there is no way I can continue to do this for the next 6-9 months. So I took a 9 month break. It was great!

What the other people have said, but I'll add that Blizzard have said themselves that just spending money on more people isn't a sure-fire way to success.Just think of the old saying 'too many cooks spoil the broth', it's the same with WoW. Blizz hires specialized people, not just anybody (so they are hiring and whatnot), but to just hire people en masse would be ridiculous and just ruin things.

Personally I think the content available atm is perfect, I'm not having any complaints, but that's just my opinion.

You actually prove the original point. While Chris Metzen is the supreme when it comes to the creative direction, he also is not well known for paying that much attention to the smaller details. He has a small army of writers that do that, not even adding quest designers, which have to handle just as much of those little story details. It has become such a mess that one quest designer may put in a quest that totally discredits established lore. This is not even counting novalists, who Blizzard also gives free reign to do what they want much of the time. A good example is Christie Golden often uses the WoW scale as accurate, presenting places like Theramore as tiny little fort rather then a sprawling city.

WoW is what you call a cash cow, which means it is in its product stage where they are milking as much money as they can from it. I mean, if they wanted to they could do amazing things with the game, but the profits from the game are being used elsewhere at ATVI. Developing an expansion to WoW + its various patches is far cheaper and more profitable than making a completely new Call of Duty game.

There are much more lucrative careers for people who want to make money. This is more cynical and jaded BS that ignores games are made by people who love games and who want to create what they want to play. When was WOW better and not selling out?

I call bullshit on this. I have never had more to do in this game than I do now.
This is just another case of people who do not like Pandaria or Pandaren.

And you are an example of someone who clearly can't read or doesn't understand English. The comment was Quality > Quantity. Which means quality is GREATER THAN quantity. You saying you have more to do in this game now doesn't mean anything. Having more to do doesn't change the statement of quality > quantity.

OT: I agree with the OP. Yes, MoP may be the most packed expansion ever released but if you look at how much money Blizz is making, it's pretty crazy. We will say they have 6 million active subscribers paying $15 a month (this figure is very low). That means monthly they are making 90 million just from subscriptions. Now, lets look at GW2 which has way more content than MoP has. We don't know the exact figures but it's likely it cost 200-300 million to make GW2 as Anet said they made their money back just from pre-purchases alone. So, the ENTIRE GW2 game costs about what Blizz makes in 4 months. So if you look at it from that standpoint, the game hardly delivers on what you are being charged. Also, we can discount server maintenance as all the F2P games out there now, most notably GW2 have proven you barely need any money to maintain the servers. Additionally people will jump on the WoW has more servers than GW2 and they have more employees and on and on. However, as I stated, Blizz makes up the production costs of GW2 in /4/ months. That leaves /8/ more months and at 90 million a month, that is 720 million. I think that is more than enough to cover the additional servers and paying off employees.

So the bottom line, the stuff you get for what we pay as a whole is not even close to being good. But, credit to Blizz, they are making a killing on this game and that's what they should be doing as a business. I personally play because I raid with a group of people I've know for 6 years and I've put a ton of time into my character I don't want to lose so I stay subbed. But as I said before and will say again, that will NOT carry over into whatever game Blizz releases next. B2P and F2P games are the future. Sub models will die after WoW ends. This trend has already started. And what is keeping people playing WoW is what I stated above, time invested.